Anybody was/is a fan? I used to read these when I was a kid. A couple of years ago I came across an ebay auction for one of the up to date books - undercover brothers. I didn't even realise they still wrote them. i was intriged and purchased it to see how they had changed.

There not as good as I remembered but still entertaining, for a kids book. I decided to re read the old books and found them to be as good as I remember them to be. It kinda surprised me to find it wasn't a case (no pun intended lol) of rosey tinted glasses.

i was gutted when i discovered that franklin w dixon and carolyn keen weren't real
it also took me years to find out what a jalopy was.
how on earth did anybody find out these things before the internet came along?

thingonaspring wrote:i was gutted when i discovered that franklin w dixon and carolyn keen weren't real

In some cases they were the same person. The guy who wrote the first Hardy Boys books (Leslie McFarlane) also wrote the first 4 Nancy Drew books. You can see this in the ghost of blackwood manor, it was a cut above the average ND book. Nancy actully follows clues properly in this book. I guess it didn't read well with girls as the following books took a different tone.

Yeah! Forget how many books I have, but I think somewhere near 40. Haven't bothered with any of the 'newer' material; I've kept to the original Hardy Boys Mysteries. Re-read them all during last year and enjoyed them all. Series does dip in qulaity with the change of publisher - I think from 80-ish it is Mandalin? - probably due in part to the limited number of pages. Don't have any of the original releases, either - release order of the stories has changed, as did the content to coincide with the times.

Great stuff! Might now again re-read them all - give me a break from Part 11 of the modern fantasy epic The Wheel of Time.

(Apparently, in book one of the Hardy Case Files, Joe's gf, Iola Morton, is blown to bits in a car explosion! It is reportedly a far more gritty and dangerous set of stories than the original Mysteries.)

Got the first two DVD box sets, too. Can't find any news about the final series being released, which is a pity. Not the greatest show ever, but certainly entertaining.

I think only the first 91 books were printed in the UK, but there are actully 180 ish in the origianal mystery series (which were printed until 2004), about the same in casefiles. It's the first 91 books which have a "true Hardy Boys feel" to them. The casefiles books are really good tho.

Some of those unprinted in the UK did find there way into UK librarys mind. Definatly worth checking out as they are more up to date and some are rarther good. I have a few if you wanna read one.

Also you should try to get the DVD of the Hardy Boys series that was made in the 80's. It was Austrailian and only went 1 season but it's apparently good. Hard to find tho.